by Allison Opson Clement, News Editor<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re there to do is to provide a safe place for people to talk about their feelings about death and dying\u201d \u2013 Dr. Paula Baldwin<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Death Cafe will open a free, informal discussion to the public about death and dying, at 2 p.m. in Gentle House on Sunday, Nov. 2.<\/p>\n
A Death Cafe is an informal venue: people sit at tables, snack and talk. Typically, each table will have a facilitator, whose task is to keep the conversation focused on death.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re there to do is to provide a safe place for people to talk about their feelings about death and dying,\u201d said Dr. Paula Baldwin, assistant professor of communication studies and the main organizer for Western\u2019s first Death Cafe.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a tremendous amount of superstition about talking about death,\u201d said Baldwin. For example, Baldwin said, people may retain the sense that if they speak about dying directly, it will happen to them. \u201cThe Grim Reaper, it\u2019s like that\u2019s a real person,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
To deal with that feeling, many euphemisms were developed to avoid the direct mention of death. People speak of losing a loved one, Baldwin explained, but that person is not simply wandering around the building; if someone has \u2018moved on\u2019 they aren\u2019t living in the next town over.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople have a hard time talking about death and dying. You know, there\u2019s a lot of metaphors and figures of speech we use,\u201d Baldwin said. It\u2019s a grassroots movement to help normalize the conversation, she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis doesn\u2019t come from a morbid place, no,\u201d said Kate Brassington, a Portland Death Cafe organizer. \u201cMy focus is on life, and on the living and what death means to those.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Death Cafe welcomes a variety of individuals: those who have suffered a loss, those who may be aware that they are coming to the end of their own lives, even people who, for whatever reason, are simply curious, or interested in talking about death in an open way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think the appropriate time to talk about it is towards the end,\u201d said Baldwin. \u201cNone of us are getting out alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, this is not a grief counseling group. That, said Baldwin, they leave to professionals.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery other person I\u2019ve invited into this conversation, with an open heart and an open mind, looked me in the eye, and took my hand, and thanked me, for letting them be who they are: a person who will die, and who has one chance to do it, and who has one chance to live, because of it,\u201d said Brassington.<\/p>\n
After one email, 18 of the 25 spots had been taken within five days.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, this seems like a natural extension of what I do,\u201d Baldwin said, who has been involved in end-of-life research since 2007.<\/p>\n
Historically, as family members aged, their relatives would take care of them, ease them through their final days, prepare the bodies and bury them. These days, however, people frequently have only minimal experience, which only serves to exacerbate the problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very much removed from the actual process,\u201d Baldwin said. She considers this shift similar to what happened with the food industry: whereas people formerly had to kill and prepare animals they intended to eat; now we get our meat in plastic packages.<\/p>\n
John Underwood and Sue Barsky Reid used Swiss psychologist Bernard Crettaz\u2019s ideas to create the first Death Caf\u00e9. A social worker named Lizzy Miles met Underwood and brought back the idea to the United States. Since its beginning in 2011, according to deathcafe.com, over 12,000 people have attended Death Cafes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a rousing success,\u201d said Baldwin. \u201cIt\u2019s taken off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Baldwin said that one London group is planning to make theirs a permanent fixture, rather than assembling for individual meetings.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever that spark is that makes us alive, if you\u2019ve ever seen a dead body, you know that that\u2019s gone,\u201d said Baldwin. \u201cIt really gives you a nice appreciation of life.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more information, to learn how to find a Death Cafe or start your own, visit deathcafe.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Death Cafe Welcomes Open Discussion of Death\/Dying<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":190,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}